Franziska
by thedutchessai
Summary: When I was 18 years old I promised Roman that I was going to make him alpha of the Russian pack; four years later I did.
1. Prologue

Author's note: I have no idea where this story came from, I started learning Russian and about two weeks later all these ideas for a Roman story came out of me. Actually living in Russia for a summer just made it more intense and I got really attached to these two characters. I've delayed posting this because it's my baby and there aren't really a whole lot of Roman stories out there. I hesitated posting this because I'm not sure it's good enough/ready but I won't know or improve the story unless I put it out there. I'm still continuing my Antonio saga my life just got utterly complicated in every sense of the word. Constructive Criticism is welcome especially if you have some insight into Russian life in the 70s. This is really not 100% historically accurate, but I tried not to be too outrageous. This can be read without reading my other story Mira, even though it works as a prequel if you've already done so.

References for those who are interested:

Franziska: Bianca Balti

Vittorino Agnello: Milo Ventimiglia

Roman Novikov: Daniil Strakhov

**I own nothing except for Franziska ,Vittorino, and other original characters, everything else is property of Kelley Armstrong.**

It was the morning of my wedding; our entire town knew about it and had spent two months in an automated rush preparing for it. The bakers, dress maker, and every last goddamn person on the island was waiting at the church in stiff dress clothes with beads of sweat running down their backs, desperately fanning themselves with our vellum wedding programs. I was in the church rectory in my underwear dodging plates and objects hurled at me by my future mother-in-law. I don't remember lunging at her but it took two groomsmen, a priest and my cousin Lydia to separate us. By the time Vito came in Santuzza had a bloody lip and a few strands of my hair clenched in her fists. The priest had a black eye.

"Macché!"

We both answered back at the same time, it was probably the only thing we had ever agreed on since the day we meet.

"She started it!"

"Albanian whore!"

I don't remember breaking out of my cousin's death grip or feeling my blood roast in my veins. All I knew was that I was determined to rip her fingernails off. I charged and Vito wrapped his arm around my waist.

"Yeah well your grandchildren are coming out of this whore's legs, so you'd better close that fat mouth of your Santuzza."

Right after the last word left my mouth she started crying. I didn't give a shit. Vito ordered her out of the room with an anger I'd only seen once before, his forehead was soaked with sweat and his face flushed red. I was still kicking, still gnashing my teeth, my fists beating against his legs until everyone left the room. It took me twenty minutes to calm down, for my hands to stop shaking long enough to take a sip from Vito's flask.

"I thought they were going to start taking bets."

"Franziska you don't have to do this."

I'd already made up my mind. Vito and I had been friends since I was five years old, but our marriage was just a legal formality. Vittorino Agnello was handsome, intelligent, spoke fluent Greek, Russian, and Albanian and had been accepted to study at Leningrad University in a prestigious Russian literature program. He was tall, funny, perfect, and gay. And I was damaged. We were both leaving for Russia in two weeks. I'd barely finished high school, the only child of an Albanian immigrant who cleaned Vito's family's house and cooked their food. Neither of us would be able to marry other people. I was the only one Vito ever told, the year I turned twelve, with shaking sweaty hands and a queasy stomach. His parents needed a marriage, and we needed each other. No one would marry a slut and Vito would be expected to have grandchildren with a girl from town. So I came to him one night, climbing through his open window and told him I was going to Leningrad as his wife.

"Tell my mom I'm ready to get dressed."

He kissed my cheek and squeezed my shoulder. And then it was layers of silk and brocade. My mother made my dress from gold fabric and a lavender jacket with fabric my cousins brought up from Bari. There was no father. My mother and her maiden name walked me down the aisle.

Our vows weren't fake. When they changed me over from Franziska Dukagjini to Franziska Agnello, I meant every word. People are always quick to accept marriages, blood relations, one-night stands but complete loyalty to someone without a sexual component was an oddity. Vito and I loved each other. We'd put each other before boyfriends, girlfriends, and his mother. The marriage wasn't just a cover, it was the one way that people would respect our decision to live together. A legal way to cement our friendship.

The things I always remembered about our wedding was Vito teaching me dance, his hand on the back of my waist and my head on his shoulder listening to him counting the beats. The sound of us laughing when I stepped on his feet. Until I got it right, and the room was a swirl of color. The wine and the food, the way he joked about how fat his cousins looked in their dresses. The weight of the ring on my finger as we slept side by side still in our wedding clothes and Vito with his shoes on. I listened to our breaths, counted out the beats and danced my fingers across his palm, across our duvet, his tie, my stomach. Danced both of us to sleep humming the last song of the night. Vito's fingers laced with mine, my heels slipping off my feet with a thud. And for the first time I felt I was safe.


	2. Chapter 1

A/N: I realized that I neglected to mention that this story is set in the 1970s. Any constructive criticism, comments, or insight into soviet life in the 70s is welcome! As a side note I had to settle on a lingua franca for Roman and Franziska, I chose Albanian. Although it has far fewer language learners than say Italian, its integral to Franziska's character development and I just couldn't picture her and Roman speaking Italian for the life of me.

If you want a reference for Roman, I suggest the Russian actor Daniil Strakhov. He's the person I pictured when I read _Frostbitten._

**I own nothing except for Franziska and Vittorino. Everything else, including Roman, is property of Kelley Armstrong.**

Glossary:

Po = Yes  
>miremengjes Zonjushë = Good morning Miss<br>Faleminderit = Thank you

Vito left early for an appointment at his university, leaving behind rumpled sheets and a still warm cup of coffee. He also took all the metro tokens. I dressed in a hurry, red lipstick that I scraped out of the tube with my pinky finger and whatever clothes and shoes I happened to cross paths with.

The line at the ticket window was a nightmare starring old ladies and people with two too many kids pointing sticky fingers at their faces. When it was my turn I swallowed even though my mouth was dry. My Russian was awful because I didn't make any effort. The same way I didn't try to speak Italian until I was five years old. Since we moved here I spent my days wandering, taking the train to the end of the line. Forcing myself to go to an audition for the opera, an audition I'd only gotten through a supernatural connection of Vito's literature professor. I took off in a jog right after the piano played the last note during rehearsals. I left the market, ticketing buying, and any interaction with humans to Vito. But he'd been pushing me. The man behind the window cleared his throat and I just stared at the metal tray under the grate where the person before me had abandoned his receipt.

"Italianskii?"

I was greeted with silence. I raised my eyes to the booth and there was a stern eyebrow raise glaring back at me. He wasn't handsome or sexy that was never a word I'd waste on him. Dark hair and a strong jaw peeked out from the hat of his uniform. He was striking, regal, like he'd been plopped in the wrong century.

"Fuck this, Shqip''

I don't know what made me ask if he spoke Albanian, because I'd spent much of my life up until that point trying to bury it, and the odds of anyone knowing it were slim to none.

"Po, miremengjes Zonjushë "

Yet somehow he'd beaten them. His Albanian wasn't perfect; it was mechanical and rigid, like the spine of a textbook. But I wasn't used to hearing it from foreigners. When I looked at him again, for a second I forgot about the goddamn tickets. His cheek twitched and he took his lower lip into his mouth.

"Zonjushë."

—Roman—

I saw her even in the back of the line drawn in by a flash of coppery red hair cutting through the queue of gray woolen coats. She was a good head taller than most of the people waiting. I crossed my fingers that she would be in my line, silently preparing to ask the teller next to me to stall. I didn't need to. Two windows freed up at the same time with a tinny chime and a brief flashing of lights. She marched right up to mine, grey eyes cautiously flitting up to my face. She wasn't Russian. Her hair was a dark red, long, static charged pieces clinging to a tanned face, and a hard mouth. Red lips, and a crooked nose that didn't quite match. Her speech confirmed it. She had an accent so rudimentary and bizarre that it was jarring.

"Italianskii?"

I was so enthralled by the odd way she pronounced her words that I'd neglected to listen to what she was actually saying. And then she cursed, foul and rough and asked if I spoke Albanian. I bit back a smile. It was fortuitous at best. Of all the ticket sellers in all the metro stations in St. Petersburg waiting with clean starched shirts with millions of tiny paper cuts scarring their fingers and shiny brass buttons providing a distorted image of uniform, clean-shaven expressions. Of brimmed hats shading tight pinched lips. She had chosen the one who spoke Albanian, who had learned it as an ephemeral curiosity because it sounded so musical so unlike any other language he had ever heard.

"Po, miremengjes Zonjushë "

She arched her eyebrows in shock.

"Ten, faleminderit."

I studied her while my fingers counted out the tokens, almost mechanically. The way her mouth twitched as she bit the inside of her cheek in her oversized trench coat. When she paid our fingers both got trapped beneath the acrylic gate long enough for me to feel a static shock.

"Next time, come straight to my window."

She grabbed the tokens and receipt by the fistful and threw them into a canvas shopping bag. I watched her leave and imagined the sound of her shoes clicking on the floor until an impatient customer rapped on my window, snapping me back to reality.


End file.
